When an airship is landed, many ground crew have hitherto been required as show in FIG. 9. That is to say, two hawsers (or ropes) 73, 74, which are hanging down from a gondola or the like, are pulled by the ground crew who are divided into two groups 75, 76 (one is starboard (right) side group 75 and the other side group 76) just like a "tug of war". When the airship 71 approaches to the ground, yet another group 77 of the ground crew who stands by keeps the airship 71 from moving and lets wheels 78 of the airship 71 contact with the ground. A top of a mast 80 of a mast cart 79 (a kind of a truck which is upwardly provided with a mast on the loading space thereof) is connected to a stem 81 of the airship 71. Then, the airship 71 is moored such that the above state wherein the wheels of the airship contacts with the ground is kept.
The airship 71 has a big volume for its weight so that the airship is readily influenced by a wind. A buoyancy of the airship is balanced with a weight so that the airship is floating in the air. For this reason, the airship is moored by connecting only the stem 81 of the airship 71 to the mast 80 so that a hull can smoothly rotate around the mast 80 by means of the wheels 78. Thereby, even if the wind blows from any direction, the hull can be aligned with the wind direction and a stern of the airship can always be postured so as to be in the leeward direction. Accordingly, any excess force is not applied to the connecting part and the like when the airship is moored.
When the balloon such as a hot-air balloon is landed, it is slowly landed by reducing the buoyancy little by little.
The above conventional method for landing and mooring airship is suitable for a relatively large airship in consideration of the safety. However, there are such problems that not only many hands (ground crew) but also a wide landing area (corresponding to the area of a circle wherein a radius is a length between the stem and a stern of the airship) are required when the airship is moored. Therefore, such a conventional airship cannot land in an airship base which is not sufficiently equipped. Such a conventional airship cannot land in a remote mountainous place or on an isolated island. On the contrary, recently there a small airship wherein an attitude controllability is relatively high (for instance U.S. Pat. No. 5,071,090 which has already been proposed by the inventor of the present invention), so that the airship is expected to actively participate in Emergency Medical Service.
On the contrary, when such an airship is landed, a wide landing area is required since the airship is apt to be blown off by the wind.
The object of the present invention is to resolve the problem of the conventional landing method, and provide an apparatus wherein an airship or the like, particularly a small airship having high attitude controllability, can be safely landed by virtue of the controllability for itself, thereby contributing to an urban transportation substitution for a helicopter which happens to encounter the accidents and provide a convenient transportating means for the remote place in the mountains or the isolated islands.